QUEEN VICTORIA. The Letters of Queen Victoria. A Selection from her Majesty’s Correspondence between the Years 1837 and 1861, 1882 and 1885 and 1886 and 1901. London: John Murray, 1907-1932. Nine volumes, thick octavo, 641 pp., 575 pp., 660 pp., 637 pp., 690 pp., 738 pp., 688 pp., 610 pp., 662 pp., all volumes illustrated and with various folding tables and inserts. A very near fine set in publisher’s full decorated cloth bearing Victoria’s crest, contained three volumes each in three elegant full-cloth clamshell boxes with gilt-stamped leather labels to spine and upper panel. A marvelous association copy, inscribed by his majesty George V, at whose authority the volumes were published, to his son the Prince of Wales, "For dear David from his devoted Papa George, R. J. (I?). Windsor Castle. June 23rd 1912."

George was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and he ascended to the throne when his father, Edward VII, who had succeeded the Queen, died. Randolph Churchill claimed that George was a strict father, to the extent that his children were terrified of him, and that George had remarked to Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby: "My father was frightened of his mother, I was frightened of my father, and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me," though there is apparently no evidence to suggest that George treated his children any differently (sic) than a normal father of the day, and it is clear that their relations were generally warm. Although often denigrated as a philatelist and huntsman, he was actually a man of progressive social views: appalled by the racial discrimination he witnessed as a visitor to India, he campaigned for greater Indian involvement in the government of the country. Her sympathized with the rebellious Irish and downtrodden workers driven to strike, as well, saying, "Try living on their wages before you judge them." It was he, during the First World War, who adopted the name House of Windsor to replace the unfortunately-German-sounding House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. "David," recipient of the present inscription was Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, later Edward VIII, who would abdicate after a year on the throne to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, making him the only British monarch ever voluntarily to abdicate the throne. Relations between father and son were not typically cordial during the latter’s adulthood - George was quoted as saying about his son: "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself within 12 months." The present inscription to the thirteen-year-old boy, however, bespeaks a fatherly affection as yet unmarred by sterner analysis.